Nagoya: Double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker advanced to the women’s 10m air pistol final after finishing third in qualification here on Wednesday.
After a quiet start, Manu soared to the third with a total score of 579, including 20x. Meanwhile, Esha Singh bowed out in 15th place with an aggregate score of 572-12x (94, 93, 95, 97, 97, 96), while Suruchi Singh shot 568-12x to finish 26th.
After a slow start, Manu soared up to the eighth spot and maintained herself in the top eight to qualify for the finals. Manu started with a score of just 95 in the first round. She had a resounding comeback in the second round with 96. She then piled on 98 points in her third round, followed with scores of 96, 96 and 98 in the next three series to move to the third spot in the 60-shot qualification and make the final.
However, it was an agonising end for Indian trio Esha, Manu and Suruchi in the team final as two inner-10s stand between India and bronze medallists Vietnam.
India finished fourth with an aggregate score of 1719-44x while Vietnam bagged the bronze with 1719-46x.
Manu, who is the first Indian to have won two medals at a single edition of the Olympics, had missed out on the individual medal in Hangzhou 2022 and will be looking to make amends. She was part of the women’s 25m pistol team that won gold in Hangzhou, along with Rhythm Sangwan and Esha Singh.
India won their first medal in shooting at Asian Games 2026 in the women’s 10m air rifle team event, with Elavenil Valarivan, Sonam Maskar and Vidarsa Vinod claiming silver. Elavenil also clinched an individual silver in the same event.
The following day, Himanshu Dhillon and Rundrakksh Patil bagged silver in the men’s 10m air rifle team, followed by a silver and bronze finish by Himanshu and Rundrakksh in the individual event.
(IANS)
